To protect an operator from injury with such a slicing machine it has been found to be desirable to shield the operator from contact with the blade or to cut off the motor drive. For this purpose switch arrangements can be provided which interrupt the supply of electric current to the blade motor as soon as the blade is uncovered, e.g. for cleaning purposes.
The German patent document DE-A1 26 01 269 discloses a slicing machine which utilizes a switch as a protective device which must be separately actuated before the slicer is placed in operation by being actuated before each cutting operation.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,123,959 and European patent document EP-A1 146,489 describe slicing machines which attempt to avoid injury by protective devices provided on the machine.
There are slicing machines in common use and on the market in which the stop plate is set back to establish the slice thickness by the parallel spacing between the stop plate and the blade plane. There are also machines which determine the slice thickness by the stepping of the product in predetermined increments. In this case, the stop plate can be set back by an amount which is greater than the increment of advance of the product. For safety reasons in both cases, the set back of the stop plate only occurs immediately prior to or concurrently with the slicing operation so that the stop plate will lie in the blade plane prior to the cutting operation and is returned thereto after slice formation to shield the cutting edge of the blade against contact by the operator.